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WPTV
WPTV-TV is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, serving the Gold and Treasure Coasts of South Florida. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 12 (or virtual channel 5 via PSIP) from a transmitter in Lake Worth along US 441/SR 7. The station is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, which also operates Fox affiliate WFLX (channel 29) under a shared services agreement (SSA) with owner Gray Television. The two stations share studios on South Australian Avenue in downtown West Palm Beach (mailing address says Banyan Boulevard, also known as 1st Street). On cable, WPTV can be seen on Comcast Xfinity channel 3 (in Martin, Palm Beach, Okeechobee, and southern St. Lucie counties) and channel 5 (in Indian River and northern St. Lucie counties), and in high definition on digital channel 432. History The station began broadcasting on August 22, 1954 as the primary NBC affiliate for all of South Florida with the call letters WJNO-TV. At sign-on, the first words heard on-air were from Control Room Director Vern Crawford: "The power has just been turned on for WJNO-TV channel 5 by Frank M. Folsom, President of The Radio Corporation of America." Crawford later became a fishing reporter for the station. (While the station is the oldest in operation in the region, the area's first TV station was WIRK-TV, Channel 21, which was in operation from 1953 to 1956.) At that time, it was owned by William Cook and Theodore Granick and there were only 32 employees working at the station. WJNO was later purchased by the Phipps family in 1956 and changed the call letters to WPTV. Then in 1961, Mort Watters, President of Scripps-Howard Broadcasting purchased the station for Scripps Howard. Under new ownership, the station began expanding. WPTV's current 1,000-foot (305 m) transmitter tower was built along with new transmission facilities. The station's original West Palm Beach studios were expanded. In May 1971, Scripps-Howard built new studio facilities for the station on Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach. During the 1960s and into the early 1970s, WPTV's evening news team of news director and anchor Bill Gordon, sports director and anchor Buck Kinnard, and weather anchor Tony Glenn were number one in the Nielsen ratings. Sometime in the mid-1970s, WPTV adopted the "circle 5" logo that was used for many years by sister station WEWS-TV in Cleveland. In 1976, WPTV began operating the market's first live mobile news van, as well as the first color weather radar. It remained an NBC affiliate throughout the South Florida network switches of January 1989. In 1999, it added a new Harris analog transmitter to improve its signal. The station also built a new 1,325-foot (404 m) transmitter tower. This also gave WPTV a city-grade signal in the northern half of Broward, including Fort Lauderdale. Its signal in most of Broward County is Grade B, not city grade. The upgrade came several years after the NBC owned-and-operated station WTVJ in Miami moved from channel 4 at a transmitter on the Broward and Miami-Dade county line to channel 6 from a transmitter near Homestead. On March 16, 2001, the station moved from its facilities on Flagler Drive to a larger, newer, and more advanced complex at Banyan Boulevard and 1st Street on the city's west side, approaching Clear Lake. The building's exteriors were used to depict the exteriors of the fictional television station seen during the second season of the NBC sitcom Good Morning, Miami. WPTV's "Circle 5" logo used today is a variation of the one used by WEWS-TV; that station resurrected its version of the logo in January 2007 albeit in a slightly different form than the one used by WPTV. On March 11, 2011, WPTV entered into a shared services agreement with Raycom Media, then-owner of Fox affiliate WFLX (channel 29). Under the arrangement, WPTV provides technical, promotional, and website operations for WFLX, although Raycom (and now Gray) continues to handle programming responsibilities for that station and conduct all advertising sales. Around June 1, 2011, WFLX moved its operations from its facilities on West Blue Heron Boulevard in Riviera Beach to WPTV's studios. It is unclear if the former will completely vacate its building. Category:NBC affiliated stations Category:Channel 5 Category:West Palm Beach Category:Florida Category:Former NTA Film Network affiliates Category:E.W. Scripps Company Category:1954 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1954 Category:VHF Category:NBC Florida Category:1956 Category:MeTV Affiliates Category:Laff Affiliates Category:Escape Affiliates Category:Former Live Well Network Affiliates Category:Former NBC Weather Plus Affiliates